Robert Ray, a veteran of the Associated Press and Fox News, was announced Tuesday (July 30) as correspondent for Al Jazeera America’s New Orleans bureau. Ray has also worked for Chicago’s PBS affiliate, WTTW.

Funded by the royal family of Qatar, the network is scheduled to launch Aug. 20. The network bought Al Gore’s Current TV network in January, with the intent of replacing it with the new Al Jazeera America, projected to be available in 41 million U.S. homes.

Current TV has not been carried locally by Cox Communications, but is available locally on satellite.

Correspondents were also announced for bureaus in Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

“It is critical for Al Jazeera America to have bureaus strategically placed throughout the U.S. so that we can cover the news from wherever it happens,” said Marcy McGinnis, Al Jazeera America’s senior vice-president of news-gathering, in a news release. “We want our correspondents to report on a wide range of local, state and regional stories within the context of what it means for the rest of the country. The extraordinary team of correspondents, producers and crews we have assembled has the experience to find and report stories that will resonate with our national audience.”

A description of Al Jazeera America from the network’s website:

Just like the rest of Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera America is committed to high-quality, objective and balanced investigative journalism. Al Jazeera America is being built from the ground up: we’re hiring American journalists to report on American stories from coast-to-coast.

Al Jazeera’s decision to create a U.S.-based news channel was based in part on the fact that Americans have already shown a great demand for its news and programs: Almost 40 percent of all online viewing of Al Jazeera English comes from the United States.